- Uganda: Court Releases Prominent Rights Activist on Bail
Source: US News & World Report
“A Ugandan court on Wednesday released on bail a prominent rights activist whose detention was seen by campaign groups as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent ahead of the country’s general election that was held on January 15. Sarah Bireete, who heads the Centre for Constitutional Governance, a Kampala-based pressure group, was detained on December 30 after questioning the accuracy of the voter register to be used in the poll. She was later charged with offences related to alleged unlawful disclosure of voters’ information. … Rights groups and the opposition have long accused his government of using the military to suppress dissent. The government denies those accusations.” (01/28/26)
- Safety Board Blames FAA For Multiple Failures in DC Crash
Source: New York Times
“The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved dangerous flight routes that allowed an Army helicopter to fly into the path of a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025, to calamitous results. … the investigating board also castigated the agency for not doing enough to respond to warnings about longtime risks to safety and found a complacent culture within the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport that relied too heavily on pilots in the airspace being able to see and steer clear of each others’ aircraft, a practice called visual separation. They also determined that insufficient warnings from the air traffic controller to the pilots of the Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet involved in the crash, and altimeters that, unbeknown to the helicopter pilots, habitually gave faulty readings of altitude, also contributed to the tragic crash.” (01/28/26)
- Hungary: Regime charges Budapest mayor for allowing banned pride march
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Hungarian prosecutors have charged Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony over his role in arranging last year’s gay pride march in the capital city, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people despite a ban. Prosecutors have ‘filed charges and seek a fine against the mayor of Budapest, who organised and led a public gathering despite a police ban,’ their office said in a statement announcing the case on Wednesday. … Since returning to power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been tightening his grip over the country and has targeted groups advocating for human rights. Orban’s conservative government has also pushed for legislation promoting traditional family values and steadily rolled back LGBTQ rights. In 2025, his Fidesz party amended laws and the constitution to ban the annual pride march, drawing protests from critics and the European Union.” (01/28/26)
- Third “No Kings” US-wide protest planned for March
Source: Politico
“The group behind the nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests are planning their fourth demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term — and are anticipating even greater turnout than their earlier rallies. Ezra Levin, a rally organizer and the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, said in an interview that the planned third ‘No Kings’ protest on March 28 is in response to a ‘secret police force terrorizing American communities.’ … Indivisible estimated 3 million protesters turned out for its ‘Hands Off’ rally in April 2025, while 5 million showed up in June as part of the first ‘No Kings’ protest and 7 million for the second ‘No Kings’ demonstration in October. Organizers said they are aiming for nearly 9 million people to turn out in March.” (01/28/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/28/no-kings-protest-march-00750265
- Ecuador regime files protest after ICE gang tries to enter its consulate in Minneapolis
Source: United Press International
“The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy in the South American country after a federal immigration agent tried to enter its consulate in Minneapolis. Uncorroborated video of the incident shared online shows a consular employee confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to enter the facility. The employee stands in the doorway and tells the ICE agent that he is not allowed to enter. The ICE agent is heard telling the employee to ‘relax’ and threatens to ‘grab’ the employee if the agent is touched. … Law enforcement of the host country is generally prohibited from entering diplomatic missions of foreign nations, including consulates, except with the consent of the head of the mission, Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 states.” (01/28/26)
- South Korea: Court jails former first lady for bribery
Source: Reuters
“A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to 20 months in jail on Wednesday for accepting Chanel bags and a diamond pendant from Unification Church officials in return for providing political favours. The wife of ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted from office last year, was cleared on other charges of stock price manipulation and violating the political funds act. Prosecutors will appeal against the not-guilty verdicts, media reports said. The ruling comes amid a series of trials stemming from investigations into Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law in 2024 and related scandals involving the once-powerful couple.” (01/28/26)
- Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push
Source: CNBC
“Amazon said Wednesday it plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate jobs, marking its second round of mass job cuts since last October. In a blog post, the company wrote that the layoffs were part of an ongoing effort to ‘strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.’ That coincides with a push to invest heavily in artificial intelligence. The job reductions come just a few months after October’s layoffs, when 14,000 employees were let go across Amazon’s corporate workforce. At the time, the company indicated the cuts would continue in 2026 as it found ‘additional places we can remove layers.'” (01/28/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/amazon-layoffs-anti-bureaucracy-ai.html
- TikTok settles frivolous lawsuit ahead of trial
Source: The Hill
“TikTok has settled a lawsuit accusing it and several other social media companies of designing addictive platforms shortly before the landmark case headed to trial Tuesday, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs. It is the latest company to settle the case and avoid trial, after Snapchat’s parent company similarly reached a settlement last week. The trial will now go forward with the two remaining companies, Meta and YouTube. … The plaintiffs have accused the social media companies of deliberately designing their platforms to induce kids to use their products despite research linking social media to youth mental health issues. ” (01/27/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5708532-tiktok-lawsuit-avoided-trial/
- North Korea: Kim says upcoming party congress will unveil plans to bolster nuclear deterrent
Source: Seattle Times
“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will unveil plans to further bolster its nuclear program at the upcoming ruling party congress, as he observed the North’s latest weapons launch, state media reported Wednesday. The Korean Central News Agency said North Korea performed a live-fire drill of an upgraded large-caliber multiple rocket launcher system in the presence of Kim on Tuesday, an apparent reference to what South Korea and Japan earlier described as ballistic missile launches from North Korea. State media photos show Kim walking near a huge launch truck with his teenage daughter in her latest public appearance with her father. South Korea’s spy service said in early 2024 it considered the girl, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, as her father’s likely heir.” (01/27/26)
- Reform on the Move
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Harry Phibbs“Like the United States, the United Kingdom has a first-past-the-post voting system. This tends to entrench a two-party system. It takes a lot for other rivals to break through. The resulting culture of complacency and entitlement by the main parties is certainly less than ideal. In the UK, politics has been dominated by the Conservative and Labour Parties for the last century. In 1922, Labour overtook the Liberal Party. By 1924, the Liberal Party’s support had collapsed. Our opinion polling suggests that just over a hundred years later, British politics is having another shake-up. An insurgent party called Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, a friend of Donald Trump’s, has a commanding lead in the polls, and has done so since the end of April last year.” (01/28/26)
- Trump officials, Alex Pretti and the truth
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru“You’re a government official and you have just learned that some of your employees have shot and killed a civilian. You don’t have all the facts, and there are discrepancies in the initial accounts. What do you do? For most of us, I presume, the answer is to call the victim’s family to express condolences and then to promise the public a full investigation followed by whatever consequences the results warrant. That’s how previous administrations, regardless of party, would have responded. But the Trump administration views such niceties as weakness. Looking weak, giving an inch to the critics, must be avoided at all costs. … If the administration were consciously pursuing a strategy optimized for producing confrontation rather than for bringing down the number of illegal immigrants, it would be proceeding just as it has been.” (01/28/26)
- Ted Cruz’s anti-Tucker pose for 2028 is truly a Jurassic Park dud
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter“Ted Cruz is reportedly planning on running for president. But which version? The Tea Party Republican senator who once called the Iraq war a mistake, tried to appeal to non-interventionist Ron Paul libertarians, questioned Barack Obama’s authority to strike Syria, warned against U.S. military adventurism, who was also once the favored alternative to Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary only to eventually capitulate to MAGA even after Trump insulted his wife? No. This Cruz will be neocon. But without calling it that, or even appearing to rebrand to Trump voters, while also, in actuality, rebranding.” (01/28/26)
- Fighting back against Texas’s wave of censorship
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Graham Piro“The chill in the air on Texas’[s] campuses isn’t just the winter storm sweeping the nation. The state’s public university systems have taken aim at faculty course materials that touch on the topics of race and gender, imposing a system of effective prior review that gives administrators carte blanche to excise course material they don’t like or think will pose political problems. At Texas A&M University alone, administrators have canceled or interfered with approximately 200 courses. Now faculty and students are fighting back.” (01/28/26)
https://www.thefire.org/news/fighting-back-against-texas-wave-censorship
- Worse Than Lying
Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg“In his seminal book On Bulls— (the actual title isn’t censored), philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt argues that lying implies a certain respect for, and knowledge of, the truth. ‘It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bulls— requires no such conviction.’ What this administration does is worse than lying because they don’t care whether something is true or false, only whether it will be believed. The Trump White House is a bulls— distribution hub, that connects via tubes, canals, and sluices across the media landscape. Like some vast Rube Goldberg contraption, the guy on the giant hamster wheel powering the whole thing is a president who spent his life saying whatever he needed to say at any given moment to make a deal, get out of trouble, whatever.” (01/28/26)
- After Alex Pretti’s Death, the Administration Signals a Shift on Immigration Enforcement
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“It turns out that President Donald Trump can change direction when a high-profile enforcement effort staged for political impact instead causes blowback. While sending 2,000 federal agents to Minnesota was supposed to embarrass the state’s Democratic politicians and make them look impotent, it instead resulted in the deaths of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti and further alienated a public already turning against hardline immigration policies. The shift is welcome, but the price in lives required to achieve it is too high. It’s also unlikely to bring us the far-reaching law enforcement reform we need.” (01/28/26)
- Trump Is Broadening His Use of Economic Warfare
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Snider“‘Tariffs,’ President Donald Trump is fond of reminding us, ‘is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.’ It’s the most beautiful word ‘because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our countries businesses back that left us.’ And that’s how it started. On ‘Liberation Day,’ on April 2, Trump announced a 10% minimum tariff on goods from all countries with some countries being hit with higher ‘reciprocal tariffs.’ ‘For decades,’ he explained, ‘our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.’ But Trump’s use of tariffs and sanctions quickly broadened as a versatile tool for much more than returning business to America. First they became a blunt tool for regime change; then they became the go to tool for everything from foreign policy goals to election interference.” (01/28/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/trump-is-broadening-his-use-of-economic-warfare
- Trump’s Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Decline
Source: Antiwar.com
by William D Hartung & Tom Engelhardt“Trump’s rush to war in Latin America is a phenomenon that, until recently, seemed long over. Its revival should raise multiple red flags, given the history of Washington’s failed efforts to install allied governments through regime change. (Can you spell Iraq?) In fact, given this country’s lack of success with such attempts since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it’s a good bet that regime change in Venezuela will not end well for any of the parties concerned, whether the Trump administration, the new leaders of Venezuela, or the people of our two countries.” (01/28/26)
- We Can Have Unity or We Can Have Freedom. We Can’t Have Both.
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken“The idea of political unity has long been a popular trope and slogan in politics. ‘He’s a uniter, not a divider’ is a sentiment that many American politicians like to cultivate about themselves. Over many centuries and across many jurisdictions we encounter the claim that unity is a political virtue, and that anything that ‘divides us’ must therefore be condemned. Some even label opposition to unity as a type of treason. So, it makes sense that political unity is often the language employed by those who seek to enhance and increase the power of the state.” (01/27/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-can-have-unity-or-we-can-have-freedom-we-cant-have-both
- The lawlessness of ICE is a betrayal of voters
Source: spiked
by Fraser Myers“Voters want the law enforced, fairly and consistently. They want criminal elements removed from their communities. But when it appears, fairly or not, that agencies like ICE have themselves become sources of disorder or lawlessness, it is entirely understandable that public opinion will turn. The killings of two citizens have not been the only outrages. In Minnesota this past month, immigration officers have arrested a five-year-old child, and were filmed pepper spraying a man they had already detained. Last week, they wrongfully arrested a US citizen at gunpoint, searched his house without a warrant, and led him out on to the streets in his underwear, in sub-zero conditions. This aggressive, confrontational approach – by masked-up heavies – may appeal to the diehards, but it shocks ordinary folk who would otherwise support robust border control.” (01/27/26)
- The Government’s Story About Alex Pretti Just Fell Apart — And They Know It
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles“When Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24, the Trump administration immediately launched into damage control mode. But instead of being honest about what happened, top officials — from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to FBI Director Kash Patel to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — did what every government does best: They told lie after lie to justify killing an American citizen. Video evidence, witness testimony, and investigative reporting have exposed these lies one by one. And the pattern is clear: these people will say anything to protect federal agents who kill civilians — whether it is true or false.” (01/27/26)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/the-trump-administrations-lies-about
- From Athens to Sparta: How Trumpism Is Driving America’s Decline
Source: The UnPopulist
by Johan Norberg“How do you create a golden age? In my book Peak Human, I tried to answer that question by examining seven exceptionally creative and innovative civilizations — ancient Athens, Rome, the Abbasid Caliphate, Song China, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Republic, and today’s Anglosphere. … In the United States, it is hard to escape the feeling that President Trump has read my book in reverse. He speaks of unleashing a new American golden age, but the way in which he is upending many of America’s greatest strengths seems designed to move the country straight toward its phase of decline and fall.” (01/27/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/from-athens-to-sparta-how-trumpism
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/28/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Advisers Quietly Turn on Stephen Miller as Brutal ICE Poll Hits.” (01/28/26)
- TAC Right Now, 01/28/26
Source: The American Conservative
“Trump’s Crisis in Minneapolis & Divorce from Europe.” (01/28/26)
- Underthrow Podcast, 01/28/26
Source: Underthrow
“Peace Propaganda: The Power of Story.” (01/28/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/peace-propaganda-the-power-of-story
- The Next Level, 01/27/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Lil’ Greg Bovino Sent Home; Tom Homan In.” (01/27/26)
- Nonzero, 01/27/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“The Case Against AI | Robert Wright, Emily Bender, and Alex Hanna.” (01/27/26)